50 Ways to Tell Your Toddler to Stop

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If you’ve ever had the misfortune of being in charge of a toddler for more than 10 consecutive minutes, you’ve probably found yourself repeating some iteration of “STOP THAT!” until you were blue in the face. Toddlers have a natural inclination towards adventure but have zero common sense or perception of potential danger, so your primary job as the adult in charge of this live-action danger machine is to make sure he or she doesn’t endure grave bodily harm by doing something stupid like catapulting off the couch. Protecting your valuables and electronics is a secondary goal — I don’t know at what age children begin to understand that throwing heavy objects at television sets is NOT a good idea, but they definitely haven’t figured that out by 17 months.

All this cease-and-desist ordering can get tiresome, though, so I’m here to help you spice things up! I’ve got fifty toddler-ready pleas for you to add to your arsenal so you no longer have to sound like a broken record when you find your child perched up on top of the coffee table, naked, hurling blocks at your dog:

  1. Please stop.
  2. That’s enough, Bud.
  3. Enough!
  4. Cool it.
  5. Dude…no.
  6. Let Mama do that for you.
  7. AAAAAAAH!
  8. Danger! Danger!
  9. NOOOOOO!
  10. Don’t touch that, please.
  11. Come on!
  12. That’s not a good idea.
  13. No, we’re not gonna do that right now.
  14. No touching!
  15. DON’T PUSH THOSE BUTTONS!!!
  16. Get down from there, please.
  17. Get down from there before you kill yourself!!!
  18. GET. DOWN. NOW.
  19. Sit on your bottom.
  20. Can you just…not do that?
  21. Don’t be a maniac.
  22. C’mon, seriously.
  23. I mean it!
  24. WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS?!
  25. Look! It’s Cookie Monster!
  26. Look! Actual cookies! You can eat them if you stop that!
  27. Mama said NO.
  28. Dad said NO.
  29. You’re gonna get a booboo!
  30. Chill out, please.
  31. That doesn’t look like a good idea, Bud.
  32. Don’t even think about it.
  33. Come over here to Mama.
  34. I am BEGGING you to stop.
  35. Put that down.
  36. No throwing!
  37. How about being a normal human being for three seconds? Wanna try that out?
  38. Calm down.
  39. Don’t jump!
  40. Why don’t you come sit in Mama’s lap?
  41. Stop kicking me, it hurts.
  42. Be gentle, please.
  43. ACK! GENTLE! GENTLE!
  44. That’s a no-no.
  45. Be a good boy, please.
  46. PLEEEEEEASE STOOOOOOOOP. PLEASE!
  47. That’s not for throwing.
  48. Don’t stand up on that!
  49. Be nice to Mama!
  50. [Unintelligible pleading through sobs of exhaustion]

Unfortunately, none of these will actually work.

3 thoughts on “50 Ways to Tell Your Toddler to Stop”

  2. The range is wide. I use all of those and more on both the baby and the near four-year-old. Guess which one listens? That’s right. Neither.

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